Posted: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:57 PM - 8,885 Readers
By: Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
The future of a municipal golf course, a biological field laboratory and other portions of 345 prime acres along the Colorado River in West Austin could hinge on redevelopment plans consultants will present to the governing board of the University of Texas on Thursday.
Or not.
The question of how the Brackenridge tract should be used has been debated since it was donated to the University of Texas in 1910. Time and again over the years, regents and various blue-ribbon committees have tried, but failed, to develop a long-term plan.
Col. George Washington Brackenridge, a banker who served as a UT regent for nearly 26 years, gave the tract to the university in hopes that the main campus would be moved to the riverfront location. Regents signed on to his recommendation, only to see the Legislature block the move in 1921, in part because business interests opposed the site, saying it was too far from the heart of the city.
Lawmakers instead appropriated $1.4 million to expand the original 40 acres by 135 acres.
"Thus died forever all hope of implementing Col. Brackenridge's dream of moving the main campus of the university to the tract of land on the banks of the Colorado," Regent Frank Erwin Jr. wrote in a 1973 review of the parcel's history.
It was Erwin who, in the 1960s, took a lesson from that history, using his trademark combination of bluster and savvy as chairman of the Board of Regents to obtain passage of a state law that gave future boards authority to sell, lease and otherwise operate the Brackenridge tract as they see fit.
That power is not limitless, though, with development not related to the university subject to local ordinances as well as a 1989 agreement with the City of Austin.
The tract has taken on a somewhat eclectic flavor over the years. The largest portion, 141 acres, has been leased for decades to the City of Austin for the Lions Municipal Golf Course, also known as Muny.
Other long-standing uses include a youth sports complex and 500 student apartments. Other portions have been leased for a grocery store, restaurants, a marina, shops, an upscale apartment complex and the headquarters of the Lower Colorado River Authority. The proceeds have netted millions of dollars for faculty salaries, scholarships and other purposes.
But with considerable open space, there is a potential for much more income.
Enter Regent James Huffines. Like Brackenridge, he is a banker. Like Erwin, he is a student of history and a politically savvy board chairman. Huffines set the development wheels in motion again in 2006.
"It's time for us to produce a long-term, multigenerational plan," he said then as he appointed a task force to advise the regents.
The panel of civic, business and other leaders concluded in 2007 that the golf course, apartments and perhaps the field lab should be eliminated to make way for new development. The regents subsequently hired Cooper, Robertson & Partners LLP, a firm based in New York City, to offer advice on how to develop the tract.
Cooper is charged with preparing two conceptual master plans, for which the company could receive up to about $5.1 million in fees, travel and other expenses. The regents said they wanted two plans to allow for alternative uses.
Golfers and others have been campaigning for Muny's preservation. Faculty members have been lobbying for retaining the field lab.
"The proximity to campus allows it essentially to be an extension of campus and a very special kind of situation that's virtually unique in the world," said Lawrence Gilbert, a professor of integrative biology and the lab's director, in a documentary on the lab.
"I can see why there could be a very high value on the land. I can see why there would be a very high value on Central Park in New York City," Gilbert said. But "there are certain limits beyond which you degrade your city if you keep going."
Opposition from students to razing the tract's apartments, though initially strong, has all but disappeared with the Cooper firm's announcement last month that its recommendations would include rebuilding the nearby Gateway student apartment complex to accommodate 800 to 825 units, for a net gain of about 100 units.
The firm also said it would recommend building two access ramps to MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) along Lake Austin Boulevard.
